Girls who attend all-girls schools get better exam results than girls with similar backgrounds and academic records at co-ed schools, as well as boys at all-boys schools, according to new research.
It’s long been known that girls who attend single-sex schools outperform other types of co-ed learning institutions. However, this latest research is the first to find these results while also adjusting for background characteristics.
Using data from the National Pupil Database in England, Natasha Plaister– a statistician at FFT Education Datalab– identified pupils who attended mixed and single sex schools, and looked at the cohort who completed Key Stage 4 in 2023.
The analysis found that students at all-girls’ schools in England scored an equivalent of 10 percent higher GCSE grades that year.
While only a slight difference, the FFT found the “modest boost” of exam scores at all-girls’ schools couldn’t be attributed to the students’ prior academic records or the lower numbers on free school meals or with special needs compared with co-ed state schools.
In contrast, boys attending all-boys schools had no exam boost compared to their peers at mixed schools.
Based on this analysis Plaister concludes that “single sex schooling may provide a modest boost to grades for female pupils, but doesn’t seem to make any difference for male pupils”.
While single-sex schools are often seen in selective grammar schools and concentrated in wealthier areas, these factors only accounted for 90 per cent of the higher results achieved by girls’ schools, meaning 10 per cent was left unexplained.
Chief Executive of the Girls’ Schools Association, Donna Stevens told The Guardian that her theory behind this latest research finding has to do with the environment the girls are in and how much attention is given to their success from teachers.
“We know, and research shows, that boys typically in a classroom take up more of a teacher’s time, so if you remove boys from the equation the girls are going to have more teacher time, and that’s going to be helpful in terms of achievement,” Stevens said.
Previous research has shown that teacher gender bias does play a role in female academic achievement. Rigissa Megalokonomou from the University of Queensland has found that this bias at least partly explains why female enrolments in science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) degrees are disproportionately low, despite the fact that boys do not outperform girls in these subjects in high school.
Worldwide, research has shown that females outperform males in most subjects and enrol in higher education at greater rates.